


Live and Learn

by IAmTheUltimateGleek



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: But they are both so very stupid, Edelgard Loves Her Wife Very Much, F/F, Humor, Mentions of Dorothea/Petra, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:16:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28769193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheUltimateGleek/pseuds/IAmTheUltimateGleek
Summary: The solution had been staring her in the face this entire time.Edelgard was simply going to have to seduce her own wife.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Live and Learn

The aftermath of the war had left a broad wake of issues before the Empire, as was any such inevitable condition to change. 

Fodlan's people had turned to Edelgard in search of not only answers, but hope. Her word alone would forge a new world. However, this honor left little time for more personal introspections.

Especially private addressments...

While it certainly wasn't much of a secret to the rest of the world that she and Byleth were in love, only a select few knew that they had already formally wed. The truth of it could still make Edelgard feel lightheaded to remember. Their friends has tried, quite amicably, to persuade them into holding a grand ceremony, but in truth, neither she nor Byleth had found much attraction to the thought.

There were far too many other problems in need of their attention. Too many in fact.

At first it had been a playful ruse, how they could only enjoy moments secretly stolen away in passing, but now it was outright testing the limits of Edelgard's patience. There was hardly even a second of time left for the two of them to share by each day's end and the irritation of the fact had only succeeded in amounting over the past month's time.

Had she been a holier woman, she might have wagered that Rhea was cucking her from beyond the grave. A remarkably petty feat that she would not put past the so called "Immaculate One" in the slightest.

When she had broached the issue with Dorothea, the latter had suggested that she simply telling Byleth that she was egregiously horny. To which, Edelgard responded in a manner befitting an Emperor, by burying her face into her hands and screaming.

Her "urges" were not the point! It was the principle of the matter! Love, as a concept, had always felt like an unobtainable fantasy for Edelgard. A failsafe of a word that could better excuse the passionless arrangement of preserving bloodlines. A overtly fantastical notion that served only to enrich the parchment of tattered books and fabled tales. As one could imagine, when the real thing finally managed to strike Edelgard's defenses, it hit with quite a force.

Byleth was everything she found she could still adore in the world. The gentle way she moved, how her words held steady even when faced against trial or strife. The way her mind could grasp any wayward thought and find something beautiful to witness within it. The minuscule tilt of her head when she smiled in truth, how she had never once wavered in choosing this path; in choosing Edelgard. 

That love had been more than enough for them, and whether or not Byleth wanted to pursue more physically intensive acts was not for Edelgard to pressure her with. Byleth was already her wife. Her light, every weakness she had, Byleth owned. She was the one Edelgard wished most to cherish and find again in every lifetime to come. She was the beginning and end of her resolve and will. She was currently lying face first on the ground, naked, with her hair and limbs tousled about wildly-

Wait.

The scene she'd just walked into took a moment for her to properly process fully. Edelgard was certain Byleth had been clothed the night prior, as well as this morning when she had left their chambers in search of breakfast. But now? Her wife was entangled in a web of red sheets in the middle of their room, unmoving and bare.

Were the offset of a full blown panic not beginning to rise in her throat, Edelgard might have taken a moment to appreciate the sight itself. However, instinct decided for her that rather than scream immediately for help, Edelgard would instead fall over herself like a newborn foul in her rush to her wife's side. 

"Byleth! Are you-" Edelgard flipped Byleth at once to check the area above her heart for injury. Before she could finish or seek out her wife's pulse, Byleth's dark eyes startled open owlishly, alert and very much so alive.

Without thinking, Edelgard dropped her head in relief, "Oh thank goodness, I thought-"

"Ah! El, your horns-" At her sound of distress, Edelgard realized two very important things. One: She was staring directly down at her wife's bare chest. Two: Realization #1 was to blame for the following catastrophe of events.

Edelgard snapped her head upwards at the same moment Byleth jerked forward, leading to a head-on collision that placed them both on their backs, groaning.

Byleth recovered first, before scrambling to reverse their positions. She worriedly reached to pull Edegard's head up onto her lap in order to get a better look at the damage.

"El, are you okay? That sounded like it hurt. El?" Byleth gently pulled Edelgard's hands away from her face, taking in the already reddening mark beside her left eye. 

At the minimum, Edelgard could have conceded that the only thing actually wounded was her pride. However, when she finally opened her eyes in order to assure Byleth that she was fine, the very troubling sight that had caused their first collision was now fully obscuring everything. And she did mean that quite literally.

Byleth though apparently had taken her gaping silence as an indicator of a much more severe injury because in the next moment Edelgard felt the ground leave her as she was hoisted over her wife's shoulder like a particularly weightless bag of potatoes. 

"Oh Sothis, I'm so so sorry, El. Hang in there, Manuela or Lin can fix-" At the mention of going towards the medical wing, Edelgard's reflexes once again unintentionally responded before she could think through the next few seconds.

In an effort to stop and free herself, Edelgard kicked out her legs suddenly with a yelp, "WAIT Byleth, you don't have-" Their combined momentum failed to account for the terrain difficulty of silken sheets lying on a hardwood floor, and as such, both Edelgard and Byleth soon found themselves, once more, on their backs, groaning in pain.

Edelgard held her hand up in surrender to the world around them.

"How...on earth...did we win a war," Even while winded, her tease did manage to get a similarly breathless laugh out of her teacher. "Perhaps the goddess has chosen to enact a more passive form of revenge against us." 

Before she could try to blink the remaining stars out of her spinning vision, Byleth face appeared over her, but this time far more slowly. As if anticipating another headbutt. 

"Sothis wouldn't. But I'm sure she is indeed laughing." The thoughtful conviction of her statement made Edelgard smile in turn. Even in jest, Byleth would know best.

They remained like that for a quiet moment, simply taking one another in. It had been so long since they'd last had the opportunity to simply enjoy the silence around them.

However, the peace was abruptly ruined once Edelgard caught sight of a nasty bruise beginning to form along the side of Byleth's neck. Reaching one hand upwards to carefully touch the mark, Edelgard frowned at the sight of Byleth biting back a wince. 

"Did you hurt your neck just now when we fell?" she asked regrettably, already smacking herself for overreacting in the way she had. But Byleth merely shook her head in response, lifting her own hand to remove Edelgard's and bring her gloved palm to her lips for a chaste kiss.

"No, this was from earlier. Your crown just hit it at an odd angle," As if sensing her apology, Byleth leaned down to place an equally as gentle kiss against Edelgard's lips. "I'm fine, my heart...are you?" The question itself was all Edelgard needed for the last five minutes of mayhem to replay perfectly in her mind.

Rather than risk losing her ability to speak again and chance another glance, Edelgard promptly slammed her eyes shut and turned her head to the side. Still lying motionlessly on her back in order to avoid one more singular bruise.

"Wh-Nevermind me! The more pressing matter should be why in the several Hells you lying naked on the floor!?" She hadn't intended for her voice to reach the fevered pitch it did, but something about the memory of how Byleth had looked while staring up at her had drastically made the space between them feel far too small. 

She could practically hear Byleth's head tilt confusedly as if the question alone were as perplexing as a reason for the universe itself. 

"Petra had to reschedule our meeting, and I thought you had meetings all morning. So I came up here to take a nap." She responded plainly. 

"On the floor?" Edelgard challenged.

"I like the floor sometimes"

"Naked?"

"I was...hot...," Now that got her to pause in her interrogation. 

Even without looking, Edelgard could sense the telltale signs of Byleth diverting her gaze. Her wife was many brilliant and wonderful things, but a good liar was not one of them.

Especially not since losing the Crest of Flames. Ever since the war's end, Byleth had slowly begun acting more and more emotionally in very subtle ways. Many would blink and miss the significance of each tell in their entirety, but Edelgard had always sought out the unperceivable ways Byleth's humanity exposed itself. The way she would fiddle with the loose threads of her clothing or hilt of her dagger when bored or anxious. How her jaw would tense and lock up silently when the nobility spoke to either of them with overly honied words. The way her eyes would flicker away from others when trying to keep a secret from them. 

Watching the woman she loved most learn to express herself in a way she always could have had Fate not meddled with her life, always broke and somehow warmed Edelgard's heart. Byleth had always been more than a token vessel for other's, she had been born as alive as any other human, blood of the gods or not, but for all that she condemned, Fate had still given them the chance to encounter one another. That choice to remain side by side though had always been theirs to make, to swear upon.

A great part of that promise included demanding honesty always. Especially when it came to someone as usually forthcoming in her opinions as Byleth. 

So, with the same herculean effort she had used to kill the gods of the earth and skies, Edelgard sat up, turned herself around, and looked directly at her naked wife. Waiting patiently for Byleth to meet her gaze head on before standing to her full height.

The tactical advantage of having the upper ground, literally, during confrontations was something Edelgard often loathed by the sheer principle of her stature alone. However, the method was effective enough at current. There was a brief flash of guilt in Byleth's expression as she realized that Edelgard had not bought in to her excuse.

"Oh, you we're 'hot'?" She asked disbelievingly. "Why not open the balcony windows, my love? The breeze is actually quite chilly today, if I recall," It was a bluff. Edelgard had no idea what the weather was like outside, but Byleth took to the bait easily, and clearly, if the way her right hand began to fiddle with the sheets beneath her was any indication. 

Much like a player realizing that they are a move away from losing the entire game, Byleth forfeited her hand with a sigh, her eyes dropping to the ground once more.

"That's...not what I meant..." Her voice sounded distant, almost ashamed. Upon hearing it, Edelgard lost all desire to celebrate her mental victory, and instead immediately rejoined her wife on the floor.

She gently reached out to halt Byleth's hand from pulling any more threads from the sheets' edge, before turning her chin to face her once more.

"My love, you do not ever have to tell me something if it makes you feel too uncomfortable to discuss," Edelgard smiled at the small frown of worry that creased the space between her wife's brow. "Truthfully, I mean it. I only wish for you to trust me with what you want, and that can be anything or nothing," Byleth's leaned forward slowly to press her forehead against Edelgard's own, expression still deeply troubled.

"I trust you with everything I am, but this feeling is not one I can name. Not yet. I don't even know how to go about explaining it..." The hesitancy in her voice held an unspoken question. A request for permission, for her patience and help.

Edelgard pulled back just enough to place a kiss against her forehead, "Take your time. Why not try comparing it to other things you can name?" Byleth blinked placidly, considering her offer deeply, before nodding her head.

"Alright. It feels hot," She and Edelgard make a face at the same time, "not in the way I meant before. It's more like my skin is hot and everything else is too tight." She nods her head, as if reaffirming her word choice to herself mentally, "And it makes me feel hungry."

"Hungry?" Edelgard parroted curiously.

"Yes, but not for food. I tried that already. It just gets worse the longer I ignore it. It makes me feel like I need to move or fight something..." Edelgard racked her brain to try and seek out any possible correlation between any of what Byleth was describing. 

There had to be at least some pattern of effect that was reoccurring here. It couldn't be a blatant external factor, otherwise Byleth surely would have mentioned it. All she currently had to build off of was that it made Byleth feel energized, yet unsatisfied. While contemplatively retracing her wife's thought process, Edelgard worried her lip between her teeth.

"You mentioned that you'd originally been trying to come back up here in order to take a nap, correct? Were you thinking of anything in particular before you suddenly felt this feeling return?" Byleth thought back on her question deeply, before shrugging her shoulders carelessly.

"I was thinking about you," At her simple admittance, Edelgard's thoughtful expression became alarmed. 

"Me? Have I done something recently that upset you?" Byleth quickly shook her head, growing more confused herself as she tried harder to elaborate. 

"I wasn't thinking about you in a sad way. I was just thinking about you. Your hair, your voice, how I wanted to kiss you," Byleth suddenly froze in place. 

After a beat, her eyes widened gravely as a sudden dawning realization began to materialize before her. 

"Actually...now that I think about it, I think that's always where it starts. I think about kissing you and holding you and getting to look at you and then all of a sudden my chest doesn't feel right, and my skin feels too hot...." While summarizing her symptoms in one go, Byleth turned to face Edegard with an absolutely devastated expression.

"Am I allergic to you? What if I'm allergic to kissing you? I don't want to stop kissing you ever, El I swear I-" The forlorn, kicked puppy expression Byleth wore was the only thing left tethering Edelgard to her mortal body.

For the rest of her consciousness had abandoned her and Byleth both in favor of ascending to somewhere very very very far away in order to scream.

**Author's Note:**

> I am incapable of writing things without niche humor or entirely overwrought out emotions, so enjoy my first (an last) attempt at spicy content.


End file.
